Waking up to sounds that fill my hearts with joy and laughter signifies a wonderful time of year- Christmas. Hearing my favorite Christmas song, which has been sung generations, warms my heart. Christmas It seems to be the best time of the year. Every time I change the radio station there’s another old Christmas tune. My eyes begin to sparkle until I hear a spin on the beat, a person freestyling, and an artist that is struggling to hit every note to sound better than the next. I realize with horror that it’s not an old classic, but a new remix.

Christmas covers are the worst. Remaking someone else’s song to make the song sound “better”. Just ends up being a mess. It’s also rude to the actual artist that wrote the song in the first place. When Christmas carols become pop songs by having artists like Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, and Ariana Grande to perform, things just don’t sound right. Trying to make a carol turn into a rap track by adding rappers to the Christmas song like Chris Brown, Ludacris, and Childish Gambino also isn’t a good idea either. Now it has become the norm for artists to take Christmas carols and make them their own by completely changing the song.

The Glee cast’s Christmas album is full of covers and mash-ups of different Christmas carols like Deck The Rooftop, Baby It’s Cold Outside, and Jingle Bells. I do not like cast groups, because their voices are so washed out. It’s like the group has to sing a certain way and they can’t really use their voices. They have to blend in with the others so it takes away from each member’s voice. The songs that they perform were not great. I don’t like the high notes they hit or the way they move their voices and notes around. The songs were created by the original artist to be certain way. And the Glee cast butchered them. The songs have a meaning, but when a cast group like Glee just throws the meaning away, it ruins the Christmas spirit. Instead of meaning and feeling, the group adds pop that seems empty and shallow. Glee focus more on the notes and the person who sings it rather than the way the words tell a story. They are just a cast with trained singers and dancers, and musicians relaying, a heartfelt sung.

Even though, the other Christmas covers was not amusing to me, I did This Christmas covered by Chris Brown pleasing to play when I’m in the holiday spirit. The song was originally sung by Donny Hathaway and released in 1997. The original version was a slow soft song, but Chris Brown made it into an R&B track with a matching music video released alongside the movie of the same name. I love the way he took the song to a whole new level.

Things change in each generation, and music is no exception, but some things should be preserved. I would rather stick to the original version of the music than listen to covers that have lost their meaning and the soul feeling of it. Music shouldn’t be for show. That’s not how Christmas music should be.